The present invention relates to an apparatus and a method of shaping plastics material pre-forms into plastics material containers. Apparatus and methods of this type have long been known from the prior art. An apparatus of this type for the shaping of plastics material pre-forms into plastics material containers, also referred to below as a stretch blow moulding machine, usually has a plurality of blow moulding stations in which the pre-forms are blow moulded into plastic bottles by the application of an internal pressure. These finished blow moulded plastics material containers are soiled after this process and have to be cleaned in a complicated manner afterwards in order to observe specified hygiene standards.
In addition, blow moulding machines of this type, in which the shaping process takes place inside a clean room are known from the prior art. This means that the plastics material pre-forms are shaped into the plastics material containers inside this sterile room or clean room.
A sterile blow moulding machine is known from WO 2010/020529 A2. The subject matter of this publication is hereby also made the subject of the present application by reference in its entirety.
In this case an important component of apparatus of this type is a sealing device by which the clean room is bounded off from the environment. So-called surge chambers, which have a continuous duct for liquid which is arranged in a stationary manner for example and with respect to which a wall of the clean room is moved, are known in this case from the prior art, the aforesaid wall dipping into this duct for liquid and a seal thus being achieved by the liquid present in the duct.
A further problem in the case of machines of this type, however, is that an exchange of gas is to take place in part between areas of the clean room or between sealed areas of the machine respectively and the environment, and this exchange of gas should be controlled as much as possible and should also take place under aseptic conditions. The surge chamber described above allows a rotation to be possible on the one hand and prevents the gas from being able to escape at the liquid barrier on the other hand. In this way, the surge chamber forms a rotatable sealed-tight connection or a liquid bath forming an hydraulic seal respectively.
The object of the present invention is to provide an apparatus which despite the seal formed by the surge chamber also allows an operationally reliable extraction of media or even an operationally reliable supply of media, and in particular gaseous media.